Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What got you into reloading your own ammo?

I started casting a year or two ago. So far it's been an expensive habit.





As far as logistics I buy a pound or two of powder, a thousand primers, or a few boxes of bullets whenever I get to town (not often.) In my ~23 years of reloading I've built up a pretty good supply/variety of most everything.





I'm too much of a tinkerer to stick with one load for long. Always trying to improve.

This ^^^^^^

I tried the common powders thing.

It didn't work so great.

I buy enough powder to last, IE an 8 pounder of the best powder for each round/load choice.

I still buy 8 pounders of common powders to cover a range of issues, simply as a backup. Like Unique, H110,4350 and 4831. They may only get used in a pinch.

But the years I tried to get to the fewest powders I ended up sacracifing in some places but ok in others. In the end it wasn't worth the hassle vs just buying what works.

I started with shotgun shells as a kid to duplicate Winchester upland loads for quail cheaper than I could buy them. I used green dot powder that was very dirty. For rifles it was to load 6.5 swed with hornady 160 RN.

I'm hijacking this thread. Been reloading for a year and a half and all the brass I've used was from factory ammo I fired and saved. I just bought 100 pieces of PPU 6.5x55 new brass and wonder if I need to size it first? The rifle I load this cartridge for is a CZ 550 American.

I bought a 338-06. Not many other options.

Absolutely! I tried the narrow the powder down thing but came back to the reason I reload, to get top accuracy and flexibility with my guns. I've been able to narrow my powders down to:

Bullseye, Unique, H-110, RL7, H-335, RL-15 and H-4350.

I hope handgun powder becomes available again when I get my RL550 set up in the next couple months. I'm out of Bullseye and H-110 and don't have enough Unique to make enough rounds to justify a progressive

For my rifles, 223rem and 308win, I got H-4895, Varget and some Blc-2. Looking for IMR-4064

For my 45acp and 44mag, I got unique and 2400.

I first started reloading to ring more accuracy out of my hunting rifles. And I also like to shoot big heavy LBT Cast Bullets out of my .44 mags and .45 colts.

I started in 1952 when in gunsmith school. It was more or less expected. In fact when you bought a reamer set back then a sizer was pretty much automatically included for you to make your own dies. One of my first rifles was a 6.5x54MS which was not loaded in the US. The reamer set from Raton Reamers had a sizer I used to make a set of dies for it. I have been loading ever since. I looked in my reloading area and I have 20 sets of dies for everything from 257 Roberts to 416 Rigby, 450-400 3 1/4 though I no longer shoot very much.

Yes by all means! And be sure & check the case length on every one of them! Just an easy way to avoid hard to explain problems!
Ask me how I know:)

cdb

It can be a little bit of a shock going from once fired to new brass. Ulvjaeger is right; check length, and size. You may also have to chamfer the case mouths. The condition of new brass is variable. I have had more work to do with the bulk pack brass; it seems as though there is a little less QC.

Be sure any used brass is clean. Often it is thrown into a box or bag, and it can get contaminated with primer residue. If the cases are not clean, you will score the brass, and possibly the sizing die.

All of the used brass I use is cleaned in my Thumler's so it is squeaky clean.

Guess I'll size the new brass and trim if needed.

1. Dad's example. His rifles all shot better with homegrown.
2. Economics. I wince looking at factory prices, even the good-shooting stuff we have today.
3. Performance. The more you know, the better it gets. With two exceptions, I've been able to get happiness on the target inside of 100 rounds from the first shot fired in any shooting iron.

Living later on in the brooks range here I had a 760 .30-06 that was a shooter with them 220 grn round nose. Action began to get abit sloppy and problematic years later so I began to carry more often and shot what limited boxes of shells for my Finnbear .338 my father gave to for my 16th birthday back in 72'. Flying in to Fairbanks for just a couple of boxes of 210 Partitions was spendy to say the least. Christmas coming on my young wife asked me what I wanted.........without beating around the bush I told her that Forester Bonanza dbl ram single stage press.
Had no clue how to reload although it shined come Christmas day I took it out into my cache and left it there. Come spring I rummage thru my cache and took a look at it and noted abit of rusting on one of the rams. Pissed me off pretty bad and built my first reloading table that day. Rubbing that rust off became an affair that has lasted to this day.
Nothing was cheap or economical as this passion has allowed a door that opened and can't be shut to this day. I can honestly say that factory fodder does not go down the tubes of themany rifles and handguns I now own.
I could have saved many thousands of dollars by not getting that press years ago but I would have missed out on one of the greatest joys of shooting and reloading and harvesting proudly the many animals I have taken because of Sako rifle.

Poverty..

In 1976 I took up deer hunting with a couple of 2LT buddies while stationed at APG MD - I used a 12 gauge shotgun and slugs. I also bought two books written by Jack O'Connor (The Rifle Book & The Shotgun Book); under Jack's guidance I bought a Ruger M77 in .270 WIN and borrowed some used reloading gear. I was self taught using a Speer #8 (later a Speer #9). Wish I'd had a mentor back then, but I slowly learned to be a competent handloader by continuing to read books and magazine articles.

What got me into reloading?

5 or 6 old men that use to hang around East Park Hardware in Memphis TN. There was a table/social club in the back of that store in the early 1980's and these guy's hung out there all day drinking the owners coffee, talking guns and hunting. The owners were a pretty smart old couple. They served up coffee and old hunting/shooting magazines for free and in return had some of the most knowledgeable salesman to ever work in a gunstore and they did it for free.

I went in one day complaining about the groups I was getting out of a M70 7Mag. After a sit down with the counsel of resident experts I was sent out the door with a some sort of 2 part epoxy for bedding, a set of dies, Speer reloading manual, Lee Anniversary Kit, bullets, powder and primers.

I was told to read the "how to" section in the manual twice and come back and tell one of them exactly what I was going to do before I did it. They were all eager to pass on the knowledge they had and I was grateful for it.

After that my groups went from about 2 inches to some as small as a dime after a lot of experimentation. Back then I only had one centerfire rifle and life was a little simpler.

Now the store is gone and sadly all the old guy's that hung around it. I'm grateful to them and have taught several others to reload since then.

You will get varying replys.....I personally check overall length and lightly chamfer the neck but don't resize new brass.

I've tried about every way imaginable for standard hunting rifles with factory barrels including a CZ 550 7X57 that shot 1/2" groups at 100 yds. I've never quantified any difference in accuracy.

Shod

I neck size new brass just to get the necks rounded (some are pretty beat up from traveling in a bag).